the london consortium is a unique collaboration between the Architectural Association, Birkbeck College (University of London), the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Science Museum and TATE. We offer challenging, rigorous postgraduate programmes in the Humanities and Cultural Studies combining criticism and creativity and leading to a Master of Research (MRes) or PhD degree in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of London.
Further details are online here and any enquiries may be directed to admissions tutor Dr. Matt Taunton on matt@londonconsortium.com
Consortium student Burhanuddin Baki will lead a five-week seminar series for London Consortium students on Mathematics for the Humanities and Cultural Studies.
These will take place 2pm - 4pm on the following dates:
The series will focus on the emergence of what appears to be the beginning of a new ‘mathematical turn’ in critical philosophy and cultural studies. In this burgeoning trend, more advanced concepts and contemporary results from pure mathematics are introduced in order to help think through various issues and problems in the humanities today. This turn is evident in, among others, Alain Badiou’s philosophical expliques of set theory and algebraic geometry; the recent interpretations of Gilles Deleuze’s work by Manuel de Landa and Brian Massumi; and the various contemporary investigations into the more algorithmic, computational and topological aspects of internet culture and the new media. In order to partake more meaningfully in this new turn, some acquaintance with advanced mathematical concepts might be useful, and some active discussions aimed at trying to provide a critical and cultural investigation of these concepts should be conducted – which is what this seminar will attempt to offer.
When radio began at the beginning of the twentieth century it was necessarily a communication rather than a broadcast medium (the only thing to listen to were transmissions from other radio users). Now, after more than a century of mass broadcasting, radio - the transmission of live and recorded sound – is moving from being a broadcast medium to being once again a medium of communication. Under these conditions, how might the production and broadcasting of sound come to form part of academic discourse? Theorists and historians of sound have devoted much time to thinking about radio. Might it now be possible to begin thinking in it?
As part of Static, the London Consortium’s audio-visual development project, Thinking Radio is a series of workshops led by notable practitioners of radio, who will reflect on what radio has done and what it may be able to do in the future. The workshops will be practical as well as critical, and will encourage those attending it to explore practical possibilities for the production of radio work in conjunction with their academic research, and as part of the cultural programme of the London Consortium. Numbers are limited, and those who wish to attend should contact Steve Connor in advance.
Wednesday 24 February 2.00-4.00
308, 30 Russell Square, London WC1E
Tim Dee, author of The Running Sky (2009), will reflect on his experience as a BBC radio producer for 30 years.
Wednesday 10 March 2.00-4.00
308, 30 Russell Square, London WC1E
Steven Connor, ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
The London Consortium Presents:
Graduate Conference - University of London, Birkbeck: April 29 -30, 2010
Abstracts are invited for papers exploring the following issues from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.
This conference explores the interplay between film, identity and history in the context of crisis and catastrophe. We approach the topic through analysis of particular films as well as through a theoretical consideration of the work of film as medium. It is not so much the crisis or the catastrophe itself, but the cultural function of its filmic representation in engaging collective memory, history and identity that draws our attention. Crisis and catastrophes serve as a narrative strategy and mode of representation in order to make history accessible. As films reconstruct the past according to present readings of historic events, the reworking of catastrophes and crisis in audiovisual media oftentimes serves to legitimate current collectives. This generates questions about the exclusion of certain visions of the past and about the possibility to interrogate dominating historical narratives through audiovisual media, and particularly through film. Indeed, interrogating the filmic affinity for catastrophes and crisis requires attention to the audiovisual media as such, articulating the correlation between the logic of collective identity building and the inherent logic of media and genre, the relation between transnational media distribution and local reception, and the possibilities of medial resistance.
Papers are invited to consider these issues, but also other possible approaches, encouraging submissions from a range of disciplines in the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. Speakers should be prepared for a 20-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions.
Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2010
Please send a 250-word abstract, as well as a brief biography (100 words) to relivingdisaster@googlemail.com. Proposals should list paper title, name, contact details, institutional affiliation and any necessary audiovisual requirements.
Successful applicants will be notified by March 1, 2010.
Please note there is a conference registration fee of £30.00, which will be due by March 15 2010. We regret that travel funding for conference participants is not available at this time.
For more information:
Website: http://www.relivingdisaster.wordpress.com
Email: relivingdisaster@googlemail.com
The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.
All meetings are in room 308, Department of English and Humanities Building, 30 Russell Square, London WC1
Animals and Sound
Monday 15th February, 4.00-6.00
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, ‘Of the Refrain’, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (London: Athlone, 1988), pp. 310-50.
Monday 8 March, 4.00-6.00
Donald R. Griffin, Listening in the Dark: The Acoustic Orientation of Bats and Men (New York: Dover; London: Constable, 1974). Extracts to be supplied.
Monday 22 March, 4.30-6.30
Oliver Messiaen, Oiseaux exotiques, (1955–56), Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956–58)
Emily Doolittle, ‘Animals in the Concert Hall: A History of Animals in Western Music’, Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review, 12 (2008)
If you would like to join the London Sound Seminar or help develop its activities, please contact Steven Connor
Artist’s Series (supported by the London Consortium)
Organised by
Architectural Association: 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES
Friday 12th February ALFREDO JAAR 6.30-8.00
Jaar explores the public’s desensitization to images and the difficulties art has in representing genocides, epidemics, and famines. He is concerned with different strategies of communication to make images visible. For the installation of Let there be light : the
In an investigation of the way in which memory is used for political purposes Sivan works with the idea of an archive common to victims and perpetrators – in this case Palestinians and Israelis. His films include Slaves of Memory (1991); The Specialist (1999) using footage from the trial of Eichmann in
Odenbach is one of
McCarthy is a writer and artist. He won the 2008 Believer Book award for his novel Remainder. He has also published Men in Space and his third novel C will appear later this year. His International Necronautical Society is an on-going art project which surfaces in a number of forms. The discussion will focus on the relation between literature and film. Remainder is being made in to a film; McCarthy has written some script for Johan Grimonperz’ Double-Take; and C contains a big film-strand. Tom McCarthy lives and works in
The London Consortium in collaboration with the Science Museum invites applications to a new PhD studentship to commence in September 2010. The London Consortium Science and Humanities Studentship is offered to support projects of doctoral research into an area that involves or establishes a significant relation between the physical sciences (or medicine or engineering) and the humanities. The award is tenable for three years and will cover the full cost of fees for a home student, or if awarded to an overseas student it will have the effect of reducing the overseas rate to the home rate. It will also include an annual stipend of £3,000 towards living expenses.
The London Consortium is a unique collaboration between Birkbeck College, the ICA, TATE, the Science Museum and the Architectural Association offering masters and doctoral programmes in humanities and cultural studies in an innovative, multidisciplinary environment. In the first year of the award the successful applicant will follow five core courses and a research methods course designed to provide a rigorous grounding in the key concepts and methodologies of multidisciplinary research. The doctorate will be examined by a thesis of 80,000 to 100,000 words, and will be awarded by the University of London.
The studentship will be awarded to a candidate who proposes an original and cross-disciplinary research project exploring the relation between the physical sciences (or medicine or engineering) and the humanities which makes use of the Science Museum’s unique collections relating to science, technology and medicine. With over 300,000 objects in its care, the Science Museum has particular strengths in the history of western science, technology and medicine since 1700. This collection is supported by the books, journals and archives which are available in the Science Museum Library. Interested applicants should apply to the London Consortium’s doctoral programme, indicating on the application form that they would like to be considered for the award. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 30th June 2010. Applicants should have at least a good 2:1 (or equivalent) in a discipline relevant to the application.
Enquiries about the Science and Humanities Studentship should be directed to Dr. Matt Taunton, admissions tutor, by email on matt@londonconsortium.com, or by telephone on 020 7836 7558.
Museums and Migration - a dialogue between David Dibosa and Seph Rodney
Open Lecture
Date: Wednesday 27 January 2010, 17:15 to 19:00
Location: Lecture Theatre Chelsea College of Art & Design (Atterbury Street Entrance)
A conversation between two London-based scholars who each, in their current research, are focusing on the museographic experiences of migrant viewers.
What are the narratives generated by museums, particularly national museums? To whom are these narratives addressed? What forces inform the visits to museums by persons from migrant or diasporic backgrounds? In their respective projects, Dibosa and Rodney challenge conventional tools of audience analysis by paying close attention to the visitor’s voice and to the ways in which it is carried and heard.
Full information available here
Andrew Brighton and Teresa Gleadowe have put together a five week seminar series for London Consortium students on Curating Modern and Contemporary Art
These will be held on Wednesdays (10am -12pm) on the following dates:
13 January - The Objects of Curation: Art and its Markets /Curating Contemporary Art since the 1960s
20 January - Some current texts
27 January - Hanging Tate Modern
3 February - Artists, Galleries and Curators
10 February - Curating Contemporary Art
The series will focus on a number of issues, addressing questions such as: How do curators decide what to exhibit and collect? What considerations guide the collection and display of works of art in museums of modern and contemporary art? What factors shape the exhibition programmes of galleries of contemporary art? What are the considerations? Are they, for instance, aesthetic or historical or to be answered by audience research? And in practice what are the constraints and obligations at stake in a publicly funded museum or contemporary art gallery? How do visitors, artists, the art market and the media figure in curators’ discussions? Are some forms of art and visual practice beyond the museum curator’s consideration?
Click here for further information about speakers and where each session is being held. Enquiries can be directed to Steve Connor: s.connor@bbk.ac.uk.
Brunelleschi Lacan Le Corbusier: Architecture, Space and the Construction of Subjectivity (Routledge, 2010)
A major new interpretive work on the structure of spatial experience, this book is for theorists of Architecture, Art, and Visual Studies. It interprets the fifteenth century demonstration of perspective for today by putting it in relation to contemporary theories of subjectivity. It explores a link between Architecture and Psychoanalysis that has not hitherto been elaborated, and opens the way for the Lacanian critique of architecture that is now a familiar feature of discourse in the other arts and social sciences.
The text argues that perspective is the paradigmatic form of spatial consciousness. This explains why perspective remains such a satisfying representational form - the form of space that we tend to call real - and why it remains the primary visual form of architectural space, despite recent experiments in representation that claim to challenge this canon. This link between the inner world of the psyche and the exterior world of architectural space is as fundamental as it is problematic, and is perhaps therefore inevitable.
Lorens Holm is Reader in Architecture and Director of the Geddes Institute for Urban Research at the University of Dundee. He has taught architecture at the Architectural Association, University College London, and at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior publications on Lacan and Architecture have appeared in the Journals Perspecta (2010), Haecceity (2008 & 2007), Critical Quarterly (2000 & 2007), and Assemblage (1993).
Further details are available here.
Evening Lecture: Thursday 26 November, 7pm
Art Critic Anthony Downey and Novelist Tom McCarthy discuss repetition in art, philosophy and literature.
Zabludowicz Collection
176 Prince of Wales Road
London NW5 3PT
info@projectspace176.com
14 November 2009 Roxy Bar & Screen, London Bridge SE1 1LB,
betting time: 6.30pm
screening time: 7:00pm
Tickets: £5 /£4 Roxy Members.
Now in its fifth year, BoSs once again presents a selection of animations, narratives, documentaries and artist films from around the world, this year in response to the theme Control.
The programme will be screened simultaneously at the Roxy Bar & Screen in London and in Athens, Barcelona, Bucharest, Maribor, Naples, Novi Sad, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Stockholm and Wiesbaden.
The films are judged in each venue by a local jury and the overall favourite is awarded glory, fame and £500 cash.
But before the show begins the audience will be asked to bet on who will be the grand winner.
Bet on the right film and win a Roxy Membership.
Audience winners will be announced in the bar as soon as all the juries’ decisions are in.
After the screening there’ll be music and celebrations in the bar.
Check out clips of the films in the Roxy or on www.bettingonshorts.com from 7 November.
The London Jury includes: Philip Ilson (London Short Film Festival), Philip Wood (Roxy Bar and Screen) and Tessa Garland (artist and curator of Visions in the Nunnery)
Sponsored by The London Consortium and Nextnode.net.
BoSs is run by Ricarda Vidal, Irini Marinaki, Konstantinos Stefanis and Sarah Sparkes.
The Thread is now in our third series of broadcasts on Resonance 104.4fm, Thursdays from 7-8pm. The following is our schedule of shows:
November 5 The Poetics of Twitter
with Ryan Ormonde, Chris Brauer and Holly Pester
Among the variety of things Twitter represents, it is a platform for poetic activity, especially an unfixed poetics that does not direct itself towards traditional means of publication and anthologizing, and also a referral service which opens access to other sources. We look at how the inherent formal limitations of the content it permits exists side by side the freedom of fast exchange across networks of people, and what this all can mean for contemporary poetic practices.
November 12 The Semiotics of Trainers
with Pedro de Almeida, Marc Halatsis and Donell Sourroukh
Pedro begins with an ethnographic history of a once defunct Portuguese sneaker brand, Sanjo, which has arisen again, and uses it to talk about corporate power dynamics, geographic economies, commodity fetishism, regional identities, performance of authenticity, hip-hop, and crime. We mean to take a very serious look at contemporary, urban culture coded through footwear, and are joined by someone who will represent his crew.
November 19 Film, Desire and Psychoanalysis
with Richard Martin, Lucy Scholes and Matt Thorne
Looking towards a course they will teach at Birkbeck this term, Lucy and Richard seek to follow the permutations of the film Eyes Wide Shut through the refracting texts of Freud and Schnitzler. They question how adaptation and translation deepens our readings of the film’s depictions of desire and fantasy.
November 26 Procrastination
with Daniel Marrone, Russell Martin and TBA
Daniel Marrone and guests want to reconsider the current negative connotations of procrastination. Rooted in a Protestant/capitalist ethic, and the standardisation of clock-time since the Industrial Revolution, it hinges on value being ascribed to a regimented use of time, a particular kind of productivity. The tendency of many researchers is to view it as an affliction. However, procrastination may be conceived as an outgrowth of alienation. And in its disruption of time-value relations, it can actually be considered a strategy to produce a time outside of capitalist time.
December 3 What do we do with the end of the world?
with Milly Getachew, Anna Armstrong and Nicky Falkof
Some of the proposed geoengineering solutions to climate change are the stuff of science fiction. As science fiction now looks to become social reality, can we learn from our art/artists about what we should now expect? And what does it say of the gravity of the situation that we are now turning to outlandish or risky solutions?
December 10 Is Art Ever a Good Tool for Politics?
with Nadia Davids, Ozlem Koksal and TBA
The idea of moblising art as a tool to advocate for political, social and cultural change has, understandably, gained serious credibility (and funding) over the last thirty years. It’s a seductive thought, but how do we value the contribution artists make, and what are the bases for these value systems. It may be that we are tricking ourselves into believing a compelling story that nevertheless fails to conclude well.
Please also see our website: http://thethreadradio.org/
The London Sound Seminar offers an opportunity for research students and faculty in London to explore issues relating to the history and theory of all forms of sound-making and auditory culture.
All meetings are in room 308, Department of English and Humanities Building, 30 Russell Square, London WC1
Thursday 12th November, 4.00 pm
Sound in Film
James Lastra, ‘Reading, Writing, and Representing Sound’, in Sound Theory/Sound Practice, ed. Rick Altman (London: Routledge, 1992), pp.65-86
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed. and trans. by Claudia Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp.89-109
Tom Levin, ‘The Acoustic Dimension: Notes on Cinema Sound’, Screen, 25 (1984): 55-68
Monday 30 November, 4.00 pm
Music and Postmodernity
Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Music and Postmodernity’, trans. David Bennett, New Formations, 66 (2009): 37-45
David Bennett, ‘Lyotard, Post-Politics and Riotous Music’, New Formations, 66 (2009): 46-57
Monday 7 December, 4.00 pm
Listening to Listening
Jonathan Gross, ‘An Ethnography of the Proms: Interim Report’
If you would like to join the London Sound Seminar or help develop its activities, please contact Steven Connor
GHost
Hosting I: Haunted Houses
20 October 2009, 6.30pm, Court Room, Senate House (South Block), University of London, Malet Street, WC1 7HU
GHost is organised by Sarah Sparkes and Consortium alumna Ricarda Vidal. It brings together artists, writers, curators, researchers and others to investigate the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture. It consists of two workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and an exhibition and screening of moving image art. The hostings take place in the haunted rooms of Senate House on 20 October and 17 November and the exhibition will be hosted by St John’s on Bethnal Green on 18 December. Both ‘hostings’ will be documented by the artist Julian Wakeling with a series of ‘ghost images’, which will haunt St Johns on the night of 18 December.
GHost is organised with the support of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and St John’s Church on Bethnal Green
This is a free event but please rsvp ghost.hostings@gmail.com if you want to attend.
For more info please email us, join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=117301037117
or visit our blog: http://host-a-ghost.blogspot.com/
Friday 23rd October 6-8pm
Dan Graham Pavillion
Hayward Gallery
Transgressive Sight and the Viewer Interrupted
Consortium student Oliver Harris will introduce his research on the myth of Actaeon as the starting point for an exploration of shame, guilt and voyeurism. Drawing on other myths of transgressive sight – Orpheus and Pentheus in particular – as well as contemporary debates regarding pornography and the law, Harris will also address the recent exhibition and closure of Richard Prince’s installation Spiritual America (1983) at Tate Modern.
Taru Elfving will discuss the act of witnessing and the address of the viewer in contemporary visual culture. Elfving with argue that when the viewer is addressed, or called to witness, the habitual positions and conventional modes of viewing are momentarily unsettled. Yet the viewer becomes simultaneously implicated through the act of witnessing, entangled with(in) the narratives and events witnessed, allowing for a rethinking of active spectatorship and the viewer’s sense of responsibility.
For those wishing to attend the following texts are suggested as contextual material:
Ovid, The Metamorphoses
Pierre Klossowski, Diana at her Bath/ The Women of Rome (Marsilio, 1998)
Jacques Lacan, ‘The Signification of the Phallus’ in Écrits (Routledge, 1977)
Benvenuto Bice, Concerning the Rites of Psychoanalysis, or The Villa of Mysteries (Routledge, 1994)
Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.Femaleman©_Meets_OncoMouse™, (Routledge, 1997)
Vivian Sobchack, The Address of the Eye. A Phenomenology of Film Experience (Princeton University Press, 1992)
Admission free but booking is essential as places are limited, to book please email: louisa.adam@gmail.com
www.haywardconversations.tumblr.com
Fictions of the City: Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris by Matthew Taunton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Critical orthodoxy has tended to see the flâneur or urban wanderer as the characteristic type of urban modernity and consequently studies of representations of the city have tended to dwell on its streets, plazas and parks. Through original analyses of novels and films set in London and Paris - from the novels of Emile Zola and H.G. Wells to films such as La Haine and Nil By Mouth - Fictions of the City argues that mass housing is just as important for an understanding of the culture and class structures of the modern city. Exploring the ways in which novelists and filmmakers engage with ideas from architecture and urban planning, this book focuses on four key developments that have shaped the two cities: Haussmann’s renovations of Paris, the growth of the London suburbs, the emergence of the grand ensemble in the Parisian banlieue and the development of the London council estate.
Tue 29th September 6-8pm
Dan Graham Pavillion
Hayward Gallery
2: Examining the “experience of the visitor”
For those wishing to attend click here for texts suggested as contextual material.
Admission free but booking is essential as places are limited, to book please email: louisa.adam@gmail.com
www.haywardconversations.tumblr.com
Birkbeck Cinema
10 October and 17 October 2009
In support of the forthcoming David Lynch conference at Tate Modern, there will be two special film screenings at the Birkbeck Cinema:
Saturday 10 October, 2pm: Lost Highway, introduced by Tom McCarthy
Saturday 17 October, 2pm: Mulholland Drive, introduced by Roger Luckhurst
The screenings are free, but tickets must be booked in advance. See http://www.lcace.org.uk/events/ for all the details.
Mapping the Lost Highway: New Perspectives on David Lynch
Tate Modern
30 October – 1 November 2009
One of cinema’s most compelling and innovative directors, David Lynch remains a major influence on contemporary art, film and culture. In this landmark event, Tate Modern brings together leading artists, academics and writers from around the world to offer a series of new perspectives on Lynch’s films.
Artists and theorists will discuss Lynch’s work in a range of theoretical and artistic contexts, including psychoanalysis, philosophy, prosthetics and photography. Speakers will include the visual artists Gregory Crewdson, Daria Martin, and Jane and Louise Wilson, and there will also be contributions from the writers and academics Parveen Adams, Sarah Churchwell, Simon Critchley, Roger Luckhurst, Tom McCarthy, and Jamieson Webster. A specially commissioned video interview with Lynch himself will also be screened, and an accompanying film programme will take place at Tate Modern and the Birkbeck Cinema.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/19702.htm
Organised by Tate Modern Public Programmes and Richard Martin (London Consortium), in collaboration with the London Consortium and with additional support from LCACE and British Association for American Studies.
